


Taken By Sleep

by Erinwolf1997



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Bad Puns, Blood, Creepy, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Horror, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, Inspired by Music, Kidnapping, Late Night Writing, Late at Night, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Song Lyrics, Song Parody, Songfic, Spooky, Writing, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:22:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinwolf1997/pseuds/Erinwolf1997
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not actually /technically/ Twenty One Pilots.<br/>Based off of Tyler Joseph's song, Taken By Sleep.<br/>Pretty dark but I also like puns so stick around to the end ;).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken By Sleep

     Something other than a clock ticks erratically as the outside light creeps in through the window shades. A lone car passed in front of the house. Then all is quiet again. Even the ticking has stopped. The contrast of the light and the dark stripes painted across the bedspread are all Tyler focuses on. Red, scattered light falls weakly on the opposite wall from the bright "4:00" bleeding out from the clock radio.  
     He turns over, now looking at the closed door that leads out to the hallway. A sad looking eigengrau painting stands on the wall next to him that looks like it could belong in a dark art gallery, lit by neon lights. He takes in every breath as he lies there, numb and confused again for the first time since the spring. The heat clings heavily in the room and Tyler knows that morning will come sooner than it did back then. The summer heat makes the streets burn bare feet but the insides of the houses are always too cold. He thinks about the time he spent parked next to the train tracks with the radio on. Freight trains would move through every so often and lethargically.  
     He sits up slowly but blood still rushes to his head, distorting his vision with blotches of emerald green. As he breathes mechanically to stop the lightheaded feeling, he swings his legs over the side of the bed. If sleep isn't going to come, there was no use in forcing it.  
     The textured carpet is woolly and cool on Tyler's feet. They had been twisted tightly between sheets that never seemed to straighten out. It feels alien and wild to be out of bed this late at night (or rather, early in the morning). That hadn't stopped him from leaving the room every once in a while, those times when lying there was more exhausting than anything else.  
     Walking toward the door proves to be dizzying and almost frightening. There is no use in knowing what's under the bed, in the closet, or beyond the door. These thoughts don't bother him anymore. Monsters proved to be nowhere else but in his head.  
     The doorknob is like the darkest shade of the painting; Tyler twists it carefully as anxiety creeps up on him. What is in the empty space behind his back? The knob makes the loudest sound in the room, to no avail. He hears all the gears click into place as the door is freed from its usual nighttime position.  
     An empty blackness encloses the hallway. Devoid of any windows, the only source of light usually comes from the now-extinguished light bulbs. The floor and walls are only distinguished by their different shades of grey. All the empty black space is a mystery.  
     He ducks back inside the room. There's too much to think about right now. The room's monochrome palette swallowed up Tyler's thought of security the moment he stepped out of his room. Clicking the knob back into place, sealing the demons back inside where they are easier to recognize, he turns back to try once more to fall asleep.  
     As he takes a step, misled tears collect in his vision. A wave of before unapparent misery washes over his mind like seawater over an already worn pebble. Blinking and stumbling, he makes it back into bed and the tears make the clock bleed red as it chants "4:05" at him through the chilling dark.  
     He reaches under the bed, retrieving a pad of paper and a pen. The pad has mountains of scribbles on it, words he had written down at other times when sleep had evaded him. Right now they have no meaning and they seem to tremble on the page.  
     The pen's cap comes off and rolls off the paper as Tyler struggles to form the feelings swimming through him into words. The pad is lit in stripes as his hand shakes and letters start to form.  
     "And I just can't believe it has to be this way."  
     A high pitched buzzing taunts him from inside his head and he tries to drown it by writing more.  
     "It seems to me that it was just the other day."  
     The buzzing is noxious like a distant, ominous bell ringing for all eternity. As Tyler puts the pen's nib to the paper once more, it slices neatly through. The "i" he had written is now a cut that is dripping down in the same color than that of the clock's light. Heart thumping, he struggles to finish the sentence. An oozing "I'll sing a song for you, my friend" appears halfway down the paper, the harpoon in his hand has carved it out in grisly perfection. The buzzing progresses to a screaming and the blood on his hands is illuminated by the bright scarlet light emanating in from the window.  
     Tyler is shocked as he is propelled into a clearer, less confusing reality. Panic arises quickly, as he assesses the situation. He's in his same bed, well at least the ceiling looks the same from his vantage point. He freezes in fear and tries to stay quiet because someone else's hand is over his mouth. He hears breathing.  
     His heart is slamming in his chest. Once from the nightmare, it now thumps from the light whispering and frightening unwanted contact with a mysterious being. The dream world and waking world seem similar in an uneasy way with the searing heat and blankness.  
     His mind has temporarily frozen and calmed from the throbbing migraine that had been unearthed from the contents of his unconscious. But now, as he realizes there is someone in his house that is not supposed to be, and even has a hand over his mouth, it is too late. He makes sense of the whisperings.  
     "Let's take him now. I think he's awake. Sleep, c'mon, the guy's awake."  
     Tyler is confused and terrified out of his senses now. The man who is stifling Tyler's cries must be named Sleep.  
     To his fear, the men lift Tyler from the bed. Part of him screams to move but that part of him will die soon. The other part of him is still sleeping. The kidnappers try their best to make no noise, and to their benefit no one comes to his rescue. The one last image Tyler sees as his craned and tired neck struggles to support his head is the bleeding light of the clock. The large man and his gang move Tyler out to the hallway. It's ten after four, and he is taken by Sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah when I heard the lyric "Taken By Sleep" I imagined Tyler being kidnapped by some dude that happened to be named Sleep. So I wrote it.


End file.
